In 1961, Swedish television
only broadcasted on one channel, in black and white of course.

The most upsetting thing that
had been shown so far, was Per Oscarsson taking off
his longjohns in the family entertainment program Hylands Hörna Dec. 1966, and
this caused a public outcry.

It was in those quiet
backwaters, at a time when Jan Myrdal had not yet
been hit on the head with the Vietnam billy stick, that the artists Ture
Sjolander and Bror Wikström started experimenting with the TV medium
"TIME"
September 1966, as an art-form. (Revealed the popular
image and myth of television)

Why produce 100 litographies,
when you can distribute your work of art to 8, 50, 100 people via television and
satellites?, they wondered. But most important was the protest against the
traditional use of the television technology itself, and turning a
media-development into a free and artistic intervention became necessary.

However, it was difficult to
find the necessary support to realise their ideas. The framework was very
narrow, but Ture Sjolander already knew this. The year before, in 1965, he had
made a first attempt to produce television art, directly for the medium, and he
was stopped. The program, "Have you
thought about the role of photography?", was already in the TV-guides, but
it was completely censored by the direction of the Broadcasting Corporation.
"They have never given me any valid justification for their censorship," Ture
Sjolander says today.

Perhaps it was censored
because he had photographed nude models from grotesque angles and wildly
grimacing people? Along with Oscarsson's longjohns, this provides us with a
clear image of how far you could go in the Swedish society of 1965.

Ture lives in a pink wooden
house on Gärdet in Stockholm. It is surrounded by fences, mysterious sculptures
and menacing beware-of-the-dog signs. Is he a bitter recluse, who is hiding away
in his nest, while dreaming about the happy '60s? Not at all. Ture looks fresh
and wears well-ironed clothes, looking a lot younger than 47.

First, some personal
details:

Recipient of a Royal Artist
Grant. He is not listed in the telephone directory, and it is extremely
difficult to get through to his answering machine. He was the first person in
Sweden, and probably internationally, who realised the possibilities of video
and television for art, culture and advanced communication. As early as 1966, he
wanted to distribute his "video art" (even though the word was not yet invented)
via satellite.

He is a multi-media artist
who has collaborated with, among others, the rock band Hansson&Karlsson.
Hologram expert. Author on books about Greta
Garbo and Charles Chaplin.
Founder of the association Video-NU-Videocentrum (with 150 members and fifteen
corporate members).

Except for being a
visionary, Sjolander has a bunch of other projects coming up. He is trying to
get government funding so he can document the public art in Sweden (or will
McDonald's be the sponsor?). He wants to make a movie out of Erik Lundqvist's book "No tobacco, no Hallelujah" (he has
already bought the film rights from the author, and a contract has been signed
with the production company Måsen and the author) and Ann
Zacharias. He is planning a trip to Papua New Guinea.

Sjolander started thinking
about the possibilities of the TV medium and its power to connect with its
audience. He found a partner in Bror Wikström, who was a major talent at the
Royal Academy of Fine Arts. However, he had turned his back on those very people
calling him a talent. Sjolander and Wikström became inseparable and they
followed in no one's footsteps, they went beyond pop art, which was the most
extreme art form at the time.

We wanted to punch pop art
in the face, meaning that we wanted to use those big outdoor billboards and wall
spaces in subway stations for example, that inspired the pop artists, and we
were inspired to use this space as an art space, not for commercial purposes.

Bror and I were "best
friends and enemies" at the same time, we were working on a completely
unexplored theme, we worked day and night for one and a half years with a new
manifest, on television, on photo exhibitions and galleries. I remember Bror
advertising among the ads for galleries in Dagens Nyheter: "Gallery of Thought -
outdoor exhibition" in Kungsträdgården (the King's Gardens) in Stockholm
city. But it was not a "gallery" as such. Kungsträdgården is always a gallery of
thought, the image that remains on your retina. Bror has left the art world now,
he cannot go back to painting, he cannot turn back the time. The
"bijouterie-painters" hated him because he was so far ahead of them, both
artistically and academically. My activities in those years were a protest
against the word. The art critics were writing away, expressing guesses and
opinions. "You go ahead and write," I thought. "Ten years ago I presented a
complete presentation about a video studio for research, education and
production (it has been postponed for years by the Art Council of Sweden, that
is complaining about how badly prepared we are for satellite programs today!).

"I called on all the
political parties in 1974 together with Bror Wikström".

Demand:

increase in the budget of
the Government Art Council for Public Art, for the purpose of artistically
humanising public places. At the communist party leader's, the clothing was a
working class jacket, at the right wing party leader Boman's, the clothing was
Sunday-best shirt and a grey suit.

Result:

the budget increased from
SEK 3,7 million to 11 million! (Ture does not mind the epithet Cameleon
Master).

"I know what is normal and
acceptable in society, and at the same time I am bored with it. Sometimes I
psyche myself up by behaving recklessly , to feel free." There you go. To
the above catalogue, we may add that Ture Sjolander, if anyone, can be named the
father of Swedish video art. The curators of the International Video Festival in Stockholm, held from
February through March, managed to convince Sjolander to come there and talk
about how it all began in Sweden. Ture showed up, immaculately dressed in a
white suit and pink tie. Ture began by saying: "We wanted the artist to really
exhibit, not to inhibit at museums and galleries." On the last night of the
festival, Ture Sjolander showed the TV program that had been stopped in 1965, on
a 6x7 m big screen, just after the show about American punk and underground
videos. "- Visual art of today is at the same stage that literature was before
Gutenberg's invention of the printing press." This is a typical quote from
Sjolander in 1963. He explains: "Let's take an artist such as Ulf Rahmberg, who
paints symbolic paintings with a very political content. He works six months on
a painting, using the most expensive canvas and oil paint. Then he sells it to
some damn wealthy dentist who shuts it up in his private living room. When he
has such an important symbolic message, he should paint on toilet paper with
poster paint and distribute it on postcards, posters, video and television!
Preferably via satellite!

The distribution is just as
important as art itself: to communicate about communication is just as important
as the mode of communication. The Mona Lisa-painting is not interesting per se,
it is the interplay between the people looking at the painting that has become
interesting. Because almost no one is interested in the painting, its power of
attraction is over after three minutes."

Öyvind
Fahlström once put it this way: "Hang up a Rembrandt on your wall, it will blend in with the pattern
of the linoleum within a weeks time. It is just a myth, an illusion, that it its
value is alive and continuous and that you can look at it anew one day after the
next … People who can experience that must be completely
crazy."

Öyvind Fahlström died
in 1976 and when we meet Sjolander, parts of Fahlström's production is hanging
on the walls of one of Stockholm's more pretentious galleries. We looked at the
exhibition and felt slightly vertiginous, or perhaps nauseous? Fahlström's
protests against the US warfare in Vietnam were sold for approximately SEK
500,000 a piece, and then we are talking about graphic prints. "It is
interesting, but really not that strange," Ture says. "First of all: I do not
believe that Fahlström tried to express a protest, he connected a modern series
of events. "(the magazine is ruined and the text
illegible).

Sjolander speaks fast, is
well articulated and convincing. He runs around in his house, finding newspaper
clippings with quotes to support his ideas. I am sure he can be a difficult
bastard.

- Once I was invited to talk
about public art with some old local government councillors. I suggested that
I'd make something with big fingerprints in concrete, where the grooves of the
fingerprint would be about 1/2 metre tall. 'Well, isn't that a funny idea,' said
one of the old councillors, 'one would have to hope that it were to be the city
mayor's fingerprints then.' I felt completely fed up and paralysed by the whole
thing, by the disrespect of an original idea. I couldn't see any development. I
couldn't do what Michelangelo did, which was shoving the axe into the ground in
front of the councillor and say: 'It was my concept, therefore it will be my
fingerprints.'

In the socialistic
countries, art is also governed by the politicians' wishes. There is a pressure
from above: 'You bloody artist, we want you to paint a worker who is using a
sledge hammer.' So the artists adapt, and become clever "photographic" painters.
'Just look at the art clubs in Sweden. They have tremendous power. There are 400
clubs, and it is said that they have about 400,000 members altogether, at Atlas
Copco, ICA, Honeywell Bull, whatever. It's a fun thing for those who sit in
front of their computer screens all day long, they get a bit of status if they
can do some art-thing in their spare time. For them to buy something for their
art raffles, it had better be something ingratiating. Artists are aware of this
now, so they paint something that will please the majority - instead of going
broke.